How to use Warcraft Logs

Warcraft Logs

Warcraft Logs is an invaluable tool for raiders everywhere to assess their performance and where they can improve.

How to get started

In order to start tracking your raids, you'll need to create an account. Use that account to log in, then link yourself to your guild if you want to upload logs. If you want to, you can also link your account to your battle.net account to automatically find and track your guild. You can start looking for guilds and uploading logs right away.

Uploading Logs

In order to upload logs, which you'll need to do to get your data on Warcraft Logs, you'll need to download the client. Follow the steps to install it. The client allows you to upload a log for a raid that is over, log your raid live in real time, or split a log that has a raid in it among other things.

You'll need to ensure you /combatlog in WoW chat in order to start logging your raid to use any of these options. It also allows you to add a description to the report, so that if you're doing attempts of a low healer comp on a tricky boss you can label the report accordingly.

Viewing Logs

To view your uploaded logs, simply head to your guild's page, and click the report from the calendar. You'll be greeted with a page that looks rather like the image below. You can also do this for other guilds, as seen below:

You'll see all sorts of useful information there, Damage Done, Damage Taken, Healing, Interrupts, Dispels and much more. But where WarcraftLogs becomes really unique is in the custom information they provide, created by site manager Kihra.

Do you have a problem?

Warcraft Logs' "Problem" system is a fantastic resource for improving your performance and understanding what's causing you to wipe instead of killing a boss. For example, visit this log of a Nythendra kill. You can analyze the extra damage take and what can be worked on to make the fight smoother.

Even the best players sometimes don't execute perfectly, especially on a relaxed farm night. You can see here that several players were hit by avoidable damage, and as a result, the Problem page has it noted as "Had Issues". If you compare your logs to other fights that executed it better you will noticed that the "Had Issues" section may read as "Has Passed".

This feature allows you to isolate the mechanics your guild is failing on, and if you have repeat issues, assess what might be causing them and what you can do to remedy the issues.

Where do you rank?

The idea of ranking to those of us who aren't in a top guild is often far out of reach. But, with the ranking method used at Warcraft Logs, you can understand your performance among players in your item level group.

You can see the image to the right, where different players have numbers attributed to them according to their rank in their item level group. You can see where you rank as your class in a particular fight across all others of the same class and spec, or the same class, or across your guild, your server, your region, the world. Rankings not only show your rank but also the damage total done to achieve said rank, the percentile that rank was in, the item level gear that player had, raid size, and much more information.

Statistic pages such as these can and are often misinterpreted as "these are the best classes/specs". Where classes/players parse and have best percentiles can often have many varying factors. For example, how your guild does that particular fight, if a fight caters more to melee or range, if particular players have specific jobs on the fight, if certain players are aloud to attack certain mobs over others. These are just to name a few. You can use this as a guideline (not a gospel) to see where particular specs and classes are standing, but keep in mind your own play ability is the key factor in parses and percentiles apart from the other ones mentioned above.

However, raids aren't the only thing that you are able to track your rankings on in. You can also track rankings across Mythic+ groups. You are able to see the best times, groups used, and learn quite a bit of info by learning how to analyze logs.

This is a very valuable tool for assessing the performance of your raid team, and yourself, within realistic parameters. Unlike healing or DPS meters, you're less subject to mechanics of your class or of bosses. Certainly, it's not an absolutely perfect measure, but a far better one than you'll get elsewhere!

Comparing While Analyzing

Many people use logs to help compare their performance to others. For example: You, a Death knight, along side another Death knight in your raid, the other Death Knight is performing far better than yourself and you want to figure out why. You are able to compare logs and see what abilities they are using, proc and buff uptimes, etc. You are also able to see what gear and talents the player you are comparing yourself to is using for the fight logs you are using.

Check Your Replay

The replay system on Warcraft Logs is unique, and can be very useful for isolating positioning-based issues. You can see a screenshot below of Temerity taking on Nythendra on Heroic, but this doesn't do the replay system justice.

Follow the link to the log itself, and you'll see that it's a fully animated replay of the entire fight from start to finish. It shows you who's who in the key, shows you key moments where players lose health, shows you raid markers, boss spells and new adds as they spawn. You can see who's standing in the wrong place, or doing the wrong thing. Navigate to the log, and click the "Play" button at the bottom left to watch Temerity's replay. You can view your own by hitting the replay tab at the top right of any boss fight!

In conjunction with the rest of the information on Warcraft Logs, replays are a fantastic tool, especially for positioning-intensive fights and strategies.

Comentários

Comentado por solitha

Having said that, I downloaded TeamSpeak and Mumble, and signed up for Warcraft Logs in one night.

That night, my email spam jumped from one every few days to a dozen a day. :-/ I don't know who sold me out, but I'm not really pleased about it.

Comentado por SoterDK1

Does anybody know the ranking is divided within EU, APAC, US or is the ranking Worldwide?

Comentado por BookKeeper

You might want to point out that you need to check that you have Advanced Combat Logging ticked in order for you to "record" the fights for the replays.

It can be found in System > Network > Advanced Combat Logging.

Comentado por mimee21

How you see the where the person is at the % ? You said the top DPS on this list, a protection warrior, despite doing lower DPS than the DPS classes below him, ranks in the top 13% for his spec in his item level bracket for this boss.

Nowhere in the picture does it say 13%

Comentado por jjanchan

What if you don't raid with a guild group? Is there a way as an individual to upload your own logs of fights (e.g. Pug heroic/mythic bosses). Some guidance on this would be appreciated!

Comentado por MadAltoholic

Comentado por johnychimpo

I cannot get my logs to update. I have combat logging on (/combatlog) and advanced combat logging checked. I have had the client for warcraft logs download for about a month or month in an half. I have copied log and updated to warcraft logs and still it has some bosses i beat for the first time on normal back in January when I was like item level 925ish ( i am now 959 equiped). I have tried live logging (i have also lived logged before and nothing) and last night I lived logged my herioc run. Went from gorithi to argus and nothing! Can someone help me out, because my parses are a hell of a lot higher than what the logs are showing. Danetherlord-Stormrage